DHANGADHI: Potatoes cultivated in the farmlands of Kailali and Kanchanpur districts have been damaged by the frost.

Local farmers are facing a shortage of potatoes as the plantation have been damaged by frost before they could be harvested.

The farmers are finding it difficult to save potatoes even where the crop is found in abundance in Kailali district. They have planted potatoes in 15 bigha land in Ratnapur, Kailari Rural Municipality-7 of Kailali, according to ward chair Kamal Prasad Chaudhary.

According to local farmers, the stems of potato plants have been dehydrated and appear like cinders due to cold weather, in lack of sunlight. Many farmers have already harvested premature potatoes as they started decaying a few days ago.

Before this, local farmers had incurred a huge loss due to damage in mustard plantation.

A staffer of Agriculture Department at Kailari, Maiya Chaudhary, said this year would witness a shortage of potatoes.

According to Agriculture Knowledge Centre, Kanchanpur, potatoes go mouldy when the temperature falls below 3 degrees Celsius during the night, especially in cold weather. Potatoes suffer fungal attack and go mouldy due to frost. The knowledge centre's Ramchandra Bhatta said, potatoes completely damaged by the frost could not be saved, however, spraying the potatoes with fungicide like Dithane M-45, before winter can prevent the fungal attack.

The local farmers are used to spraying fungicide only after the potatoes start damaging, agricultural technicians said.

Likewise, Senior Agriculture Development Officer, Yagyaraj Joshi at Provincial Agriculture Directorate, Doti said the potatoes recently and only partly affected by the cold weather could be saved using fungicides.

Potatoes are cultivated in 5,000 hectares of land in Kailali and 1,700 hectares in Kanchapur. Kailali produces around 55,000 metric tonnes of potatoes while 25,300 metric tonnes of potatoes are produced in Kanchanpur every year.